SignificanceThe earliest biomolecular archaeological and archaeobotanical evidence for grape wine and viniculture from the Near East, ca. 6,000–5,800 BC during the early Neolithic Period, was obtained by applying state-of-the-art archaeological, archaeobotanical, climatic, and chemical methods to newly excavated materials from two sites in Georgia in the South Caucasus. Wine is central to civilization as we know it in the West. As a medicine, social lubricant, mind-altering substance, and highly valued commodity, wine became the focus of religious cults, pharmacopoeias, cuisines, economies, and society in the ancient Near East. This wine culture subsequently spread around the globe. Viniculture illustrates human ingenuity in developing horticultural and winemaking techniques, such as domestication, propagation, selection of desirable traits, wine presses, suitable containers and closures, and so on.

(L. Regev).Keywords: Calcium carbonate, infrared spectroscopy, pyrotechnology, diagenesis, ash, plaster AbstractInfrared spectrometry is a well established method for the identification of minerals. Due to its simplicity and the short time required to obtain a result, it can be practiced on-site during excavation using portable infrared spectrometers. However, the identification of a mineral may not be sufficient. For example, a lime plaster floor and a crushed chalk surface have similar appearance and are composed of the same mineralcalcite. Here we exploit differences in the infrared spectra of geogenic, biogenic and pyrogenic calcites for the identification of each calcite type. The infrared calcite spectrum has three characteristic peaks in the region of 400-4000 cm -1 , designated ν 2 , ν 3 , and ν 4 . Manuscript Click here to view linked References2 When a calcite sample is ground, as part of the measurement preparation procedure, some grinding dependent changes will be revealed in the infrared spectrum. With additional grinding, the ν 3 peak narrows and the heights of the ν 2 and ν 4 peaks decrease, when both are normalized to the ν 3 height. By plotting the normalized heights of the ν 2 versus the ν 4 of several grindings of the same sample, a characteristic trend line is formed for each calcite type. The trend lines of geogenic calcites have the mildest slopes and highest ν 4values when compared to pyrogenic calcites, which can be further divided to ash and plaster/mortar samples. This method can assist in the differentiation of the various calcites, including insights on homogeneity and preservation state of the calcitic materials in question.

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ABSTRACT. The traditional chronology of ancient Israel in the 11th-9th centuries BCE was constructed mainly by correlating archaeological phenomena with biblical narratives and with Bible-derived chronology. The chronology of Cyprus and Greece, and hence of points further west, are in turn based on that of the Levant. Thus, a newly proposed chronology, about 75-100 yr lower than the conventional one, bears crucial implications not only for biblical history and historiography but also for cultural processes around the Mediterranean. A comprehensive radiocarbon program was initiated to try and resolve this dilemma. It involves several hundreds of measurements from 21 sites in Israel. Creating the extensive databases necessary for the resolution of tight chronological problems typical of historical periods involves issues of quality control, statistical treatment, modeling, and robustness analysis. The results of the first phase of the dating program favor the new, lower chronology.